Most people who buy Sales Navigator use it like a slightly better version of free LinkedIn search. That is a $1,188-per-year mistake. The tool has three distinct capabilities that free LinkedIn does not: advanced filters that surface buyers by behavior, lead and account lists that stay current over time, and InMail credits that reach people outside your network. This article walks through each one with the specific steps that move it from a search engine you occasionally open to a prospecting system you run every week.
What Sales Navigator actually gives you
A quick map before you start clicking
Sales Navigator core features
Sales Navigator
your $99/month tool
Advanced search
Lead & account lists
InMail credits
The rest of this article covers each of these three areas in order. One note on CRM sync: that feature requires a Team plan or above. The individual plan at $99 per month covers search, lists, and InMail. Those three features alone are enough to build a functioning outbound system.
Setting up your ideal customer profile filters
The filters that do the heavy lifting
Open Lead filters
From the Sales Navigator homepage, click 'Lead filters' in the top search bar. This opens the full filter panel, not the simplified search.
Set your persona filters
Add Job title, Seniority level, and Function. Use multiple titles to catch variations. 'Head of Marketing' and 'VP Marketing' are different people.
Add company filters
Set Company headcount to match your ICP. If you sell to mid-market, use 201-1,000 employees. Add Industry if relevant.
Apply the tenure filter
Under 'Years in current position,' select 0-1 years. New leaders are 4x more likely to make new vendor decisions in their first 90 days.
Save your search
Click 'Save search' and name it clearly. Sales Navigator will alert you when new leads match your criteria.
Job title input
Use multiple titles to cover how your buyer's role is named across companies.
Company headcount
Match this to your actual ICP, not an aspirational one.
The job change filter is underused
People who changed jobs in the last 90 days are actively evaluating new tools and vendors. Filter by 'Changed jobs' under 'Spotlights' to find them.
Building lead lists that stay useful
Turn search results into a working pipeline
There is a difference between saving a lead and saving a search. Saving a lead adds a specific person to your list. Saving a search creates an ongoing alert that surfaces new people who match your filters. You need both.
A lead list without alerts goes stale fast. LinkedIn profiles change constantly. People get promoted, change companies, and update their titles. Without alerts, you are working from a snapshot that gets less accurate every week.
List limits on the individual plan
The Sales Navigator individual plan caps you at 1,500 saved leads and 25 saved searches. If you hit the cap, older saves do not get deleted, but you cannot add new ones until you remove some. Plan your list structure before you start saving.
Lead list setup checklist
Using account lists to target companies, not just people
The company-level view most users skip
Sales Navigator has two parallel systems: lead-level targeting for people and account-level targeting for companies. Most users only work the lead side. Account lists let you track a set of target companies and get alerts when they hire new people in relevant roles, receive funding, or appear in the news.
This matters because buying decisions rarely come from one person. When you track the account, you see the full picture: who is joining, who is leaving, and what signals suggest a budget conversation is possible.
What account alerts tell you
New hire
Role change signal
▲ Triggers within 24-48 hrs
Funding news
Budget signal
▲ Pulled from news sources
Headcount growth
Expansion signal
▲ Based on LinkedIn employee data
Leadership change
Entry point signal
▲ New exec = new vendor review
How to build an account list from scratch
Go to the top search bar and select Account filters from the dropdown. Set your core filters: Industry, Company headcount, and Geography. Add optional filters like Annual revenue if your ICP requires a specific revenue range.
Run the search. Review the results and select the accounts you want to track by checking the box next to each company name. Click Save to list and either create a new list or add to an existing one. Name the list clearly, for example 'Series B SaaS, 51-200 employees, US, Q3 2024.'
Once the list is saved, open it from your Lists tab. Go to the list settings panel and enable alerts. You can choose to receive notifications for new hires in specific roles, leadership changes, and news mentions. Set alerts to deliver weekly rather than daily to avoid notification overload.
From the account list view, you can also click into any company and see all the people at that company who match your lead filters. This is where account-level and lead-level targeting connect: you find the company through account search, then find the right person inside it through lead search.
Writing InMail that gets replies
50 credits a month. Make them count.
You get 50 InMail credits per month on the individual plan. If the recipient replies, even to decline, LinkedIn returns the credit to your account. This changes the math on how you should write.
A vague message that gets ignored costs you a credit. A direct message with a clear ask that gets a 'not right now' reply costs you nothing. Write for a reply, not for a read.
How InMail credit recovery works
Send InMail
1 credit deducted
Recipient replies
any response counts
Credit returned
within 90 days
No reply
credit is gone
Generate an InMail draft from your ICP
Claude / GPT-4Write a LinkedIn InMail message for a B2B sales outreach. Keep it under 300 characters for the subject line and under 300 words for the body. Context: - My role: [your job title and company] - Their role: [prospect's title and company] - What my product does: [one sentence] - Reason I'm reaching out now: [specific trigger, e.g., they just got promoted, their company raised a round] - What I want them to do: [one clear action, e.g., reply to book a 20-minute call] Rules: - Open with something specific to them, not a generic compliment - Do not use 'I hope this message finds you well' or similar filler - State what you do in one sentence - Make the ask small and specific - No bullet points - End with a direct question
